Typical (redirected from typicality)

typical

Biology having most of the characteristics of a particular taxonomic group

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Typical 

that which is normal or of the nature of a model; the most likely for a given system of the objective world.

As applied to aesthetics, the concept of the typical was most extensively elaborated in some 19th-century literary theories with respect to the then current view of the specific character of realism in the arts—as, for example, in the works of V. G. Belinskii, H. Taine, and G. Brandes. In a letter to M. Harkness (1888), F. Engels described realism in the arts as “the truthful reproduction of typical characters in typical circumstances” (K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 37, p. 35).

The term “typification” (tipizatsiia) is often applied to the complex artistic process that creates characters “true to type.” Alternatively, typification may refer to the depiction of a single individual as a synthesis of typical traits that the artist has taken from many actual persons. What is more essential, however, is that the artist develop to the fullest possible extent the potentialities manifested by living individuals. The representation of typical characters, as well as their interaction with each other and with circumstances, reflects the artist’s cognizance of the substantive correlation between the individual and society.